Troian Bellisario is an American actress and singer. She is known for playing Spencer Hastings on the television series Pretty Little Liars.

Her father, Donald Bellisario, is a TV producer and screenwriter. Her mother, Deborah Pratt, is an actress, novelist, and TV producer. Troian is married to Canadian actor Patrick J. Adams.

Troian’s father is of Italian and Serbian descent. Troian’s maternal grandparents were both African-American and/or Louisiana Creole (of African-American and European, including French and English, descent). About her name, “Troian”, she has said, “It’s a family name. It was a surname on my father’s maternal side. It means “woman of Troy.”” The surname “Troian” exists in North Italy.

Troian’s paternal grandfather was Albert Jethro Bellisario (the son of Guiseppe “Joseph” Bellisario and Maria Luigia Troian-Menegolla). Albert’s parents were Italian. Giuseppe was born in Gamberale, Province of Chieti, Abruzzo, Italy, the son of Antonio Bellisario and Domenica D’Angelo. Maria Luigia was likely the daughter of Giuseppe Giovanni Menegolla, who was born in Belluno, Veneto, Italy.

Troian’s maternal grandfather was Col. Bertram Roberson Pratt (the son of Richard Edward Pratt and Theresa Cecilia/Cecelia Coates/Coats). Bertram was born in Alabama. His family was from Mobile in that state. Bertram and his parents were both black. They are listed as either “Mulatto” (mixed race) or “Negro” (black) on U.S. Censuses.

Troian’s maternal grandmother was Geraldine Bryant (the daughter of Lincoln Joseph Bryant and Mabel Avery). Lincoln and Mabel were both black. Lincoln was born in Louisiana, to Aismene Joseph Bryant and Camille Dunn. Mabel was also born in Louisiana, the daughter of Lavina/Lavinia Goeffney, and, evidently, of a white man named John Leeds Avery. U.S. censuses list Lincoln and both of his parents as “Mulatto” (mixed race) or “Negro” (black), and Mabel as “Negro” (black).

I’m confused with her name. Most sites say it’s a Slavic name, but Troian says it’s an Estracan name (whatever the tribe in Italy before the Italic people came) hence why her grandmothers named that but I have seen nothing on the interest with the supposed Italian origins but I have seen the Slavic origins of the name

“Troian” is a surname from Veneto in North Italy. Many Venetian surnames end with -an, -in, -on etc..; I guess his paternal great-grandmother, Maria Luigia Troian-Menegolla, was the daughter of a Menegolla and of a woman whose surname was “Troian”.

I saw a yt video of her mother at some Barnes and nobles or something like that. She is actually pretty pale.. For someone whose suppose to mostly black.. Not even like golden, like I’ve seen Caucasians darker than her. With a little makeup she played as a white woman in tv once. Just proves that her “black” mother was black in identity and in dna probably less than 50 percent, I’d say she was almost a quadroon at times but other times look more a mulatto that got more European genes. Hence Troian’s looks. She’s mostly white or European and will be treated as such.

Quote(I saw a yt video of her mother at some Barnes and nobles or something like that. She is actually pretty pale.. For someone whose suppose to mostly black.. Not even like golden, like I’ve seen Caucasians darker than her.)

Black Americans lots of times will fluctuate in color as they aged for some reason. They either get brighter or darker. I’ve seen Deborah Pratt when she was younger , and never would’ve mistaken her for a white women(even with a little make-up on.

Quote(Just proves that her “black” mother was black in identity and in dna probably less than 50 percent)

well like I was just demonstrating to another member of the site, you can’t always go by outside appearance. Blair Underwood, and don Cheadle are both dna tested to be more Euro than Tyra banks, yet who’s brighter? Genes are real funny, there no telling what traits you’re gonna get. My sister-law(my brothers baby mamma), is nickname (Whiteface) because she very light. Her mother , herself ,her children, and grandchildren, all high yellow. There hasn’t been a white person in her family in generations , however that high yella skin trait keeps coming.

Quote(Hence Troian’s looks. She’s mostly white or European and will be treated as such.)

Anyways, it was all over her IMDb apparently she played a white biker chick, Deborah I mean. I do understand what you mean though. Deborah looked mulatto when she was younger, as she grew older she now looks almost sort of like my quadroon neighbour. But since her grandparents were labeled as mulatto at times there is no telling just how “black” they were. But I’ve heard Troian on Twitter call herself mixed/part black so She acknowledges it.

Made me wonder, she’s part Creole (nowadays popular meaning is european/African descent). Since I know French colonization was a bit different from English, I can see why in Louisiana more of the black people there look a tad bit more admixed than your average AfAm. I actually really wish Deborah would get a DNA test tbh..

But yeah genes are crazy. I think I saw a picture of a young Troian with her supposed cousin, and that cousin was darker than deborah even when she was younger, and looked like your average AfAm (around 80%ish African). I saw pictures of Deborah’s sister and she didn’t look that black either but idk.

That always was the original meaning of the word. The creoles(when the term was first uses) were the Portuguese/ West Africans on the coast of West Africa, which gave way to the Cape Verde people. When the slavery moved over to here, the mixed blacks used the term to separate themselves from the incoming unmixed Africans. Europeans adopted the term because of the prestige it represented. Over time a culture bloomed from that.

Quote(Since I know French colonization was a bit different from English, I can see why in Louisiana more of the black people there look a tad bit more admixed than your average AfAm.)

They weren’t that much different. The English spent as much time in the slave quarters as the French did. The main difference is placage( a business arrangement), where the whites took care of their children(most of them). The (English, Ducth, Irish etc) wouldn’t hesitate to sell their children.

Quote(But yeah genes are crazy. I think I saw a picture of a young Troian with her supposed cousin, and that cousin was darker than deborah even when she was younger, and looked like your average AfAm (around 80%ish African). I saw pictures of Deborah’s sister and she didn’t look that black either)

That’s normal with Creole families . You can take one family, same mother , same father and have 5 kids all of them could be a different color, Hair different and different facial traits

I’ve gotba question? What shade of black do you have to be to be “black”? No matter what shade, Ms. Pratt would have still been back of the bus in Jim Crow America. How much percentage of ancestry doesn’t define ” blackness “.

Quote(I’ve gotba question? What shade of black do you have to be to be “black”? )

I do not know, every time I turn around people are telling me who isn’t black(because their skin is to bright, or look at their hair it not kinky , or the nose isn’t wide enough etc). I’ve never been around black people that are only one color, I’ve seen them on tv like that, but never in person

Quote(No matter what shade, Ms. Pratt would have still been back of the bus in Jim Crow America.)

Completely agree. Every woman I know that looks like her says their black. So As far as I’m concern, she’s a black woman, but I will respect whatever she wants to call herself

Quote( How much percentage of ancestry doesn’t define ” blackness “.)

completely agree. My father was as high yellow as they come(probably majority white), but saw himself strictly as a black man

Her “black” mother is actually fairly light skinned. I’ve seen her pictures in More natural lighting. Deborah is probably between half black and a quadroon. Troian is 1/4 – 1/8 black at most but looks full white or off white (the base of her noses and almond eyes may look off).

Her mom looks way less than 50 percent black. I’d say 35 percent SSA dna at most. Her features look perdominately euro influenced and the only thing that gives away a hint is her skin tone and the ends of her nose (her nose bridge looks very cacasiod).

This girls only an octoroon or 1/5 ssa/”black” at most. Save for her nose and eyes which seem off to me (more so the ends of her nose) everything else looks European/”white”. I could see her brother passing for an American mulatto or mixed Latino or quadroon though imo.

No. Her mother does not look like a quadroon. She looks African American and could easily be over 50% Sub-Saharan African. Just stop it. All these people want to come up in here and say what they think black people and their descendants look like and should look like.

“Oh, she’s light skinned. She must be more white. Oh, he’s dark skinned. He must be more black.” No. Skin color doesn’t have anything to do with how much European DNA ones has. I’ve seen a woman who is 90% Sub-Saharan African have skin lighter than a person who is only 60% Sub-Saharan African. Her mother may be light skinned, but her features are very Sub-Saharan African influenced. And if she was darker, you know your butt wouldn’t be up in here trying to say she’s a quadroon or that Troian is probably only 15% black, so you can feel better about lusting after her. Can’t have them too black, can we? -_-

This is Deborah Pratt. I’ve seen African American women who are 75+% Sub-Saharan African look more European influenced than she does.http://i.imgur.com/OmokD6B.png

Jesus. I’ve been to several anthropology forums and have talked with several African Americans and even they agreed that honestly Deborah looks no more then 50 percent. It’s not her goddamn skintone. I’ve been on Lipstick alley (a forum geared towards African American women) and many of them agreed that Deborah was biracial. I think she looks biracial

And shutup. If she was dark skinned I would mistake her for being half Indian or maybe middle eastern or half Jewish of some soft. All of them, depending on the area are “Caucasian” for the most part. And even if she was dark skinned I would know right away that Troian has a lot of Caucasian or European blood even side profile she looks very Caucasian. I know about Africa’s diversity and I don’t care about skin tone. I look at features!

So don’t you dare to assume that just she’s dark makes her more black I look at features and I could always tell Troian, with her pale skin had something non European looking about her.

And the irony is in the picture you posted Deborah to me looks like a mulatto. I don’t see a girl who would test 75 percent ssa on a test I see a girl would test 50 percent ssa or so and the fact that her daughter looks so European influenced shows this.

Deborah’s hair texture, kind of her jaw area, her lips/mouth and nose all look like they have heavy European modification/admixture. It’s NOT her skintone.

How did you get your name? It’s a family name. It was a surname on my father’s maternal side. It means “Woman of Troy”. “Toroian” is not an Italian word as it’s written in the profile, it doesn’t exist.

It’s impressive how someone who is half Italian and Black would look as white as this woman, considering how relatively swarthy Italians are. Even those who are half Swedish or Anglo and African look extremely dark.

Either, her Italian side is very white, or her black side is actually mixed and that they probably resemble Beyonce.

I don’t know. Something’s fishy about her ethnic makeup. She could be holding back on one ethnicity. :/

What is fishy about it? She is s white as some Latinos that have “black” grandparents. black is a U.S. category that includes/included mixed race people. Her grandparents were even listed as mulatto at times. They could have looked like Colin Powell. Italians are not all swarthy at all, especially in northern Italy. I’m black and lived there for years. Even Sicilians who are stereotyped as dark can be blond and blue eyed due to Norman origins. This girl’s mother is barely black in appearance. The U.S. categorizes her as black, but she is closer to white, in my opinion. if her mother said she was Puerto Rican, one would perhaps say that she has some black in her, but since she’s American she is described as black. I am medium skinned and my daughter’s father is of slav origin and is as fair as Troian, with lighter hair, and Euro features. It happens very often when the mother is the darker parent. That’s why so many Caribbean latinos who look white actually have a black ancestor, who is usually a woman. Have you seen her mother?

Yes, she has African American heritage but she looks completely Italian. Could easily pass in Italy and in regards to what people are saying with the eye shape–it’s normal for people in Italy to have a slightly Asiatic look. Italy is not that far from Turkey, where people are a blend of Central Asian and European.

that was a joke between me and follers. Italians use to have round/oval faces, large eyes, soft features, you don’t see long skulled, horse faced people with squarish jaws. Turks are generally different from Italians and loads of them don’t look European at all.

Not only is it possible for a white person and a mixed person to have a white-looking child, even two mixed people can end up with a child who looks relatively “white”. Since there are multiple genes that influence skin color, there are quite a few possible outcomes, and there are very few people, especially in America, who are entirely white or black.

At some point we have to stop looking at it as “race”, which is not a scientific term, and start looking at it as ethnicity and culture. She has Serbian, African and Italian ethnic heritage. Her race is human.

Her mom may call herself black, most biracials choose to label themselves as black. Does that make them black? No, but they think it does and it doesn’t change the fact that genetically they are half white. Maybe even more than half since black people from the USA are mixed. This girl’s mother doesn’t look black, she looks 1/4.

I’d never guess she is half-black. I mean, she even got the typically European straight, hazel hair. Most mulattos would at least inherit their black parent’s hair color and texture, if not the complexion.

Technically, I guess it’s possible to have black ancestry and still appear light tanned. Jona Ustinov, Peter Ustinov’s father, was of relatively close African ancestry, and yet he had platinum blonde hair and green eyes.

Then again, when your African ancestry is as close as a 2nd or 3rd generation, it makes a difference in appearance. Hence the fact that Troian can’t have any lighter complexion than this. That’s also why A.S. Pushkin, the Russian Romanticist poet, appeared significantly darker than other Russians, his great-grandfather being an Ethiopian-born servant.

A person inherits the genes, characteristics, and looks, of the most present/ dominant ancestry in his/ her family tree. In terms of European peoples as of today, though, it no longer makes much of a difference – we are all mixed up.

of course she looks “white”. her mother is probably less than 50% black. most african americans have native american and white admixtures. none of them are fully black as if they stepped fresh off the boat from kenya or nigeria. smh ignorant asshats. she honestly looks native american to me.

Why are there so many people obsessed with labeling her white because she doesn’t look mixed? Genetics are a trip people, you either look like you’re mixed or you don’t. Don’t discredit her for who she is. She is an American woman! that is all

She is mixed and so what if she is partly black, get over it. I think she’s a beautiful woman. She is not a white woman, no matter how badly you dumbass white people want to calm her. She’s multi-racial and American…then end.

she may be mixed but she’s white passing and i’ll call her white bc she looks white. if she were to walk up to a black person and say “what’s up my nigga” she would get the shit beat out of her and she would probably get shot. she looks white in appearance so socially she’s a white chick

She doesn’t display any black features. Her so called “black” mom looks very white. If her mom took a DNA test she’d probably be around 25% black or less. I don’t know why everyone is so shocked she looks white, most quadroons and octoroons look white. Look at Eartha Kitt’s daughter, she’s white passing.

Creole is a mixture of African, French, British, Native American etc. So her mom is half black and half Creole not half black and half white. I know this because I am also part Creole and many other things.

Some people seemed to be confused about Troian’s background. Her maternal grandparents were both black/mixed race. Her ancestry is fairly similar to Shailene Woodley’s, although Shailene has more recent caucasian ancestry on her mother’s side.

The thing says her mother African-American because thats what is said, unless the mother or troian confirms it for now her mother is african-american, and there is no problem with being AA. I’ve met people who were AA who looked biracial

I have very light skin and wavy hair and I am black. All light skin African Americans have some Europeans blood in their ancestry mostly from slavery but we don’t go around measuring it like the Hispanics do. They are obsessed with light skin AA people.

Okay first of all Italians and blacks are NOT the same thing. NOT even if you close one eyes and spin around, it would never happen. There are people who are biracial with the two but that is it. Also Troain’s mother is half white half black herself meaning she is a lot more than just Serbian, African American and Italian

you always need to claim everything as yours hahaha every European or even Mestiza actress, singer, academic, significant figure in human antiquity etc. imaging if we started doing that — ‘oh hes a racist’ lol what a joke… her mum is so light skinned, the percentage of Negroid DNA in the daughter would be less than 3% so you could breed it out of her.

How do you know that her mom is biracial? With African Americans and Africans it is really hard to tell because sometimes there would be admixture that occurred many generations back but still maintained light skin…ie…Vanessa Williams, some African Yoruba, Xhosa, and Tuareg women or even Dr. Henry Louis Gates (whose paternal great grandfather was half “white”).